“But who could possibly—”
“I don’t know, nor does it matter,” said Xydis impatiently. “The Bone Priestess, Treia, must talk to her sister, find out Skylan’s secret this morning before the game commences. Whoever tried to have Skylan killed once will try again. What better place for a murder than in the arena?”
Treia traveled the distance to Acronis’s villa in a covered conveyance provided by the Church. She entered the slave compound and, after same searching, found her sister in one of the tents. Aylaen was regarding with dismay and outrage the outlandish armor she had been given to wear in the game—a skirt of tooled leather that barely covered her hips and a leather chest protector that barely covered her breasts. She would wear metal greaves and bracers, but no helmet, so that the spectators could admire her beauty, so Keeper told her.
Hearing someone enter, Aylaen looked around. She was too angry to be surprised to see her sister.
“Look at this! Look what they are making me wear!” Aylaen gestured to the armor.
“You have dressed like a man for months. You should be used to making a spectacle of yourself by now,” said Treia.
Aylaen flashed her an irate glance. Belatedly Treia remembered that she was here to persuade her sister to tell her Skylan’s secret.
“I’m sorry,” said Treia with a stiff smile. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just . . . ever since the night in the shrine, I’ve been so worried about you. Did you talk to Skylan?”
“No,” said Aylaen shortly.
She kept her face averted and Treia knew she was lying. Aylaen was a terrible liar.
“Why not? You’ve had time.”
“I’ll wear this armor if I must, but I’m going to wear breeches underneath it,” Aylaen said, trying to change the subject.
Treia was not to be deterred. “You must talk to Skylan today, Aylaen. Ask him today to tell you the secret of the Vektia.”
“Why today particularly?” Aylaen asked, glancing curiously at her sister.
“The Para Dix is dangerous,” Treia said. “Something might happen to him. If Skylan is the only one who knows the secret of the Vektan dragons, you must get him to tell you. Otherwise it might be lost forever.”
“I’m playing in the game,” said Aylaen. “Aren’t you afraid something will happen to me?”
“I am not worried about you, Sister,” Treia said with a made-up smile. “Aelon will keep you safe.”
Aylaen frowned at her sister.
“Then why won’t Aelon protect Skylan?”
Aylaen’s eyes widened with alarm. “Something bad is going to happen to Skylan. What? What is it?”
“I know I am being overcautious,” said Treia, sitting on the cot. “Raegar assures me the Para Dix is perfectly safe. No player has died in months. But accidents do happen and the secret of the Vektan Dragons is so very important that we dare not take any chances. You must talk to Skylan today.”
Aylaen was silent a moment. She sat down beside Treia and asked in an altered voice, “What would happen if Skylan didn’t know this secret?”
“Of course, he knows it!” said Treia. “Garn told you he knows it.” She reached out her hand and smoothed Aylaen’s rampant hair. “Skylan loves you, Sister. He would do anything for just a smile—”
Aylaen’s eyes flared. “I won’t play the whore with him, if that’s what you’re asking me to do!”
Treia lost patience. “Just find out the damn secret!” she said, and stormed out of the tent.
Following the dedication ceremony in the Temple was a parade through the streets of Sinaria known as the Procession of the Players. Each team marched down the street in the order of their ranking. As a new team—“unblooded”—the Barbarians, as the Legate called them, marched last.
The Torgun dressed in their own armor, all except Aylaen, who wore the fancy armor Acronis had provided for her, with leather trousers beneath it. She would dress like this or she would not participate, she told Keeper, and the ogre had assured Acronis that she meant it. The Torgun carried their own shields, though not their own weapons. Swords and axes would be distributed to the players in the arena. The reason for this, according to Keeper, was that in the old days, players who brought their own weapons had resorted to cheating, such as smearing the tip of a sword with foxglove or nightshade.
Though he was facing his foes in a game, not in a shield wall, Skylan was surprised to feel a pulsing of excitement as he put on his helm, buckled on his breastplate, and took his place in line with his comrades, standing directly behind Keeper, who, as captain, walked in front.
The Barbarians were at the back of the parade, the very end, the last to march. The preeminent team this year belonged to the Empress. Her players were dressed in rich panoply with feathers in their helms. Their bronze skin glistened with oil. Their long black hair was plaited and braided. They wore gold armbands and specially tooled boots. They had their own drummer and trumpeter, their own colorful standards. Their captain rode in a chariot festooned with the team colors, and as they set out along the parade route, the crowd went wild. Men called out well wishes and shouted for their favorites. Women blew kisses and tossed flowers. Children ran after them, hoping for candy, which slaves of the Empress were tossing to the crowd.
The rest of the teams moved out. Skylan and his team waited, growing hot and weary in the bright sunshine. Keeper had warned him that few people stayed to the end of the parade to see the “unblooded” teams.
“Those who do will be wondering how much money to risk on us,” the ogre predicted. “Or they will stay to laugh.”
The crowds had thinned by the time the Barbarians started along the parade route. People watched quietly, not cheering. But no one was laughing either.
Skylan and the Torgun walked on proudly because they were a proud people. He could hear the ring of their armor, the thud of their feet, and the ogre’s grunt of astonishment.
“Look at them, Skylan,” said Keeper in a low voice. “They are slaves.”
The slaves of Sinaria—slaves to masters or slaves to poverty—remembered the strange foreign slaves who had valiantly hauled their broken ship through the streets of their captors with a song of defiance on their lips. The other teams had slaves on them, but these were slaves who wore golden armbands and smelled of fragrant oils; their children were fat. The slaves who waited for Skylan and the Torgun were thin and gaunt, with the pinch of hunger in their cheeks. Their children played in the gutters with the rats and died of starvation.
These slaves dare not cheer. Their masters might be watching. Perhaps they were not even supposed to be here and would face a beating when they went back to their duties. The city guards, standing on the corners to keep the crowd in order, were keeping a baleful eye on the gathering, always on the watch for signs of rebellion, always quick to put it down.
One man began to clap his hands. Others followed his lead. Skylan heard the applause and he thought of their last practice session, which had been a fiasco. His face burned. He began to wish he’d paid more attention to Keeper’s attempts at training them. Perhaps, as Zahakis had said, Skylan couldn’t stand to be beaten at anything. Or perhaps, looking at the pot-bellied, scrawny children, he didn’t want to let these people down.
“We are going to make fools of ourselves,” Keeper muttered, echoing Skylan’s thoughts.
“Maybe not,” Skylan said.
Keeper snorted. “Are you joking? Sigurd can’t count. He’s always moving too many squares. Grimuir keeps facing the wrong direction, and yesterday young Farinn tripped over his own feet and cracked his head on a boulder.”
Skylan had to admit the ogre was right, but his warriors were failures because they hadn’t taken the game seriously. He could see by grave expressions on the faces of his men that they were taking it seriously now.
“How do you think we will do this day?”
Keeper gave a grunt and rolled his eyes. “With luck, no one will get killed. With luck.” He laid gloomy emphasis o
n the word.
The champions of the Para Dix trod on sweet-smelling flowers and heard the people sing their praises. Skylan and his team trod in manure and heard the forbidden applause of slaves.
Skylan put his hand to the amulet he wore on his neck. He felt a slight twinge of conscience for making what the gods might view as a frivolous request, but his honor and the honor of the Vindrasi was at stake.
“Torval, I have asked that you find a way for us to gain our freedom. I still ask for that, of course,” Skylan added hastily, “but now I ask something else. First, help us win the Para Dix!”
CHAPTER
2
* * *
BOOK THREE
The teams to fight in the afternoon were the unblooded teams. Most sponsors had a champion team, a second-rank team, and an unblooded team. The sponsors used the unblooded teams as a way to train players. The good ones were promoted to the second-rank team. Players advanced to champion team only if they were considered outstanding.
Unblooded teams fought each other. The victors of these games advanced to play against the second-rank teams. The people who came to the afternoon games involving unblooded teams were those who took the sport seriously, coming to watch the new players in order to discover the next rising star or to study the competition.
Skylan and his team members marched into the arena and onto the playing field. He stared about in wonder. This was the first time he had been inside the arena when it was set up for the game. Naively, he had assumed it would be like the practice field Acronis had built on his villa. The famous Para Dix arena of Sinaria was as far removed from his practice field as the palace was removed from a hovel.
The builders of the arena had chosen to place it in a small, shallow valley located a short distance from the city. The floor of the valley had been smoothed and grated to form the playing field. The common folk sat on tiers of wooden benches that had been cut into the valley’s rim and encircled the playing field.
The nobility occupied grandstands built along one side of the arena. The Empress and the Priest-General and other notables were sheltered from the elements by a wooden roof. They sat in the best position for viewing the game, directly across from the fire pit in the middle of the field.
All the teams stood on the playing field while priests performed the ceremony of lighting the sacred fire and dedicating the games to Aelon. The ceremony was long and few people were paying attention. They were filing into their seats, talking to their neighbors, opening baskets of food, and getting themselves settled. Skylan had never seen so many people gathered in one place at one time, not even when he was fighting in the Vutmana and all the chiefs and many hundreds of the Vindrasi had come to watch.
He and Sigurd and the others looked at each other and grimly shook their heads. He and the others had talked excitedly about trying to make a bid for freedom. All were thinking the same thought. The Torgun were not going to escape this day.
Skylan fought down his bitter disappointment and took the opportunity to study the other teams, trying to guess which players were the best, which team they would go up against.
Only a few members of the nobility had arrived. Most would not venture out to see the afternoon games. They would wait until the champion teams staged their matches in the evening. Those who were here, like Acronis, would be managing their teams. Skylan, squinting against the bright sun, tried to find where Chloe was sitting. He had promised he would wave to her.
When the religious ceremony finally ended, people cheered. A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd, for the Para Dix was about to begin. Keeper and the captains of the unblooded teams came forward to draw lots to see which team they would fight. The lots were clay disks marked with the team colors and placed in a bowl. Each captain averted his eyes, reached in, and plucked out a disk.
The teams left the field and lined up on the edges. Most watched the drawing with keen interest. Skylan was worried about Aylaen. She was nervous and unhappy.
He edged his way over to her. “I saw Treia come to camp this morning. She was asking about the Vektan dragons, wasn’t she?”
Aylaen nodded and pressed her lips together. She did not look at him, but stared, unseeing, at the playing field.
“Treia is worried that something might happen to you in the game.”
Skylan almost laughed out loud. “Treia—worried about me?” He started to add, “When pigs fly,” but then he understood. “This sudden concern of hers is because she thinks I know the secret and she fears I might take it to my grave. Well, I might, just to spite her.”
“Don’t joke about it, Skylan,” said Aylaen miserably. Tears glimmered on her eyelashes. “You don’t understand.”
He felt wretched for having made her cry. “I’ll keep thinking, Aylaen. I promise. And look at it this way: So long as I know this secret, or they think I know it, Treia and Raegar will work hard to keep me alive.”
Aylaen managed a smile and brushed away her tears. The captains dispersed and came back, telling their players which teams they would face. Soon teams began shouting insults and challenges at each other.
Keeper, returning to his team, looked very grim. Acronis and Zahakis were there to meet him.
“I was afraid of this,” the ogre said. He opened his palm to show a lot marked with red. “We play against the unblooded team of the Empress.”
Acronis and Zahakis exchanged glances. Zahakis raised his eyebrows and rubbed his jaw.
“What’s wrong? Is her team that much better than we are?” Skylan demanded.
“A herd of donkeys is better than you lot!” Keeper said scathingly. “Have you heard the rumor, Legate?”
“It is all anyone is talking about,” said Acronis.
“This is against the rules, my lord!” Keeper stated angrily.
“She is the Empress,” said Acronis. He turned to face his players and raised his voice so all could hear over the noise in the arena. “It seems the Empress has a new player she is going to test today. A player said to be one of the fae.”
“One of the faery folk? Like a nymph or a dryad?” Skylan said, grinning. He had never encountered a nymph or a dryad, but Wulfe had described them to him, and he did not think they had much to fear.
“No,” said Acronis coolly. “More like the wolves you fought the other night.”
Skylan’s grin vanished.
“The Empress is said to have captured a fury,” Acronis continued. “She has trained this fury for the game.”
The Torgun stared at him blankly.
“What is this thing—a fury?” Bjorn asked.
“Furies take the form of beautiful human females. They are said to be drawn to people who commit murders or acts of violence by the suffering and terror of the victim, much like sharks are attracted by blood in the water,” Acronis explained. “Some believe that the furies avenge the victim by tormenting the killer until they drive him mad. Others believe that these evil faery folk simply enjoy inflicting pain on humans and that they choose murderers because the gods have turned their backs on them.”
“I served in the legions with a man who was tormented by a fury,” said Zahakis. “He had murdered his wife. He went mad and jumped into the river and drowned.”
The Torgun appeared skeptical, all except Skylan, who remembered the torment he had endured from the draugr of his dead wife.
“What sort of fighter is this fury?” Sigurd asked, always practical. “How does she attack? What weapons will she use?”
Acronis shook his head. “I had hoped to see the fury during the procession, but the Empress considers the creature too dangerous to risk parading it among the people. She is being transported to the arena under armed guard.”
If Wulfe had been here, he could have told Skylan everything he wanted to know about furies. Or at least made up a good story. Skylan hoped Wulfe was obeying him and staying hidden in the ship. Wulfe had promised that he would, but Skylan didn’t put much faith in Wulfe’s promises. Thinking o
f the boy gave Skylan an idea, however.
“We should withdraw,” Keeper was saying.
Skylan gestured at the people in the stands. “You want them to mock us and call us cowards? No! Besides, there is no need. This fury is one of the faery folk. She will not be difficult to fight. The fae are afraid of iron. She will run at the first sight of a sword.”
“How do you know this?” Keeper was skeptical.
Skylan could not very well say that Wulfe had told him, that he’d seen the boy’s fingers blistered and burned from touching a sword.
“It is common knowledge among my people,” he said.
He looked around at Bjorn and Grimuir and Sigurd and the other Torgun for support. They looked a bit startled, for they’d never heard of this particular quirk of the fae. But they wanted their swords in their hands and they all loudly voiced their agreement.
“We will play,” Skylan added. “For the honor of the Vindrasi.”
“The Empress doesn’t give a damn about your honor,” said Acronis. “She is doing this to please the masses who like the blood and gore. She breaks the rules. This is an insult.”
“Then we will insult her by defeating this evil creature,” said Skylan.
“Speaking of evil creatures,” said Sigurd, spitting on the ground. “Look who’s coming to pay us a visit.”
Raegar and Treia were walking toward them, moving in considerable haste. Raegar had participated in the dedication ceremony and was wearing his official robes and his armor. His bald head gleamed with sweat. Treia was wearing the robes of a priestess of Aelon. This was the first time the Torgun had seen her dressed like this, and they glared at her and scowled.
“You know the rules, Raegar,” said Zahakis, moving to halt them before they could reach the team. You should not be here.”
“This is important,” said Raegar. “You drew the Empress’s lot. I have just heard she is bringing in one of the fae folk to fight in the game.”
“We’ve heard the same,” said Zahakis. “Thank you for the warning, but now you must go—”
Secret of the Dragon Page 28